Knives Out 3? More like Knives Coming Out! Knives Out 3? More like Knives Out 3 Dollar Bill! Knives Out 3? More like Wives (of Other Wives) Out 3!
What we’re saying is that it’s time that the Knives Out franchise goes full gay. Look, it’s fun that Benoit Blanc is a dandy with a daddy (played by Hugh Grant), but that is a gay man who wears full-on fits, and now, more than ever, we need to see him don some clubwear and shake that Bond-trained tush at the gay club. The previous installment of the franchise, Glass Onion, took place during lockdown, so the following edition really needs to use the fact that now bodies can get up close and personal again. Ergo, Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man, is the perfect chance for writer-director Rian Johnson to let Benoit Blanc party with the go-go boys.
So far, it seems like Johnson’s already on that wavelength, because the new cast members are, in fact, all people who make sense at the club. They include: Andrew Scott, who showed off how natural he can be high off some ghost molly in a gay club in All of Us Strangers; Cailee Spaeny, who last year played Priscilla Presley, a drag icon; Kerry Washington, who played Olivia Pope, a drag icon; Glenn Close, who is, herself, a drag icon; Mila Kunis, primed to play a bachelorette party maid of honor; and Josh O’Connor, who played nubile young twink to perfection in God’s Own Country and is naturally dirty in a non-deodorized way that reeks of Bushwick gay guy. Plus, Jeremy Renner is there and he can maybe be the bouncer.
The Knives Out franchise is all about skewering the elite, of course, but if Fire Island showed us anything it’s that the gay elite have been left un-skewered by mainstream culture for far too long. They’re catty, they’re classist, and they’re ripped — truly a killer combination. And now we have the cast (plus Jeremy Renner) that is ready to do some skewering. Even Wake Up Dead Man sounds like the name of a gay circuit party à la Horsemeat Disco. Come on Mr. Johnson: Add Jinkx Monsoon to the cast list and put Daniel Craig in sparkle mesh.